5. Plan for CS161 : 09:57

- Organize them into six groups of five students each
- Tell them about textbook
- Explain the group assignment
- Divide the chapters among the groups
- Point them to course website
- Capture how much people know right now
- Do an introduction of operating systems: history, motivation

3. First day of classes : 21:40

I have a small class of 8 students. Most are taking CS21A for the
first time because they're interested in shifting into either CS or
MIS; this course will help them decide if it's worth it! =)

BlueJ was a great idea. The students quickly got the hang of creating
and manipulating the different objects. I demonstrated how to create a
circle and make it visible, then I asked them to figure out how to
make the circle yellow. People started out by typing yellow in the
parameter box - they'd figured that out quickly! - and BlueJ reported
an error. Some students figured out that they had to put quotes around
the word. That prompted a discussion on the difference between
"yellow" and yellow.

When I showed them the Picture project and the source code for the
Picture class, they realized that it was the same as what they had
been doing before, and they were able to modify the code to make the
roof green. (Most did it in drawColor, though, so I'll have to
reinforce methods by asking them to get it to work in draw()).

I asked the students what they wanted to learn how to do next, and one
said that she wanted to learn how to make the shapes move to a precise
position. I showed them how to modify Circle.java, basing my work on
moveHorizontal. I declared an empty method first and then showed how
it turned up in the method list, then I filled in the method body
based on their prompting. A student observed that Java is case
sensitive, and I repeated that for the benefit of the class. Another
student asked about spaces, and I asked her to check it out while I
squeezed the code I'd just written into a single line. I demonstrated
that it produced no errors, but said that spaces were useful for
people.

On Friday, I plan to talk about methods and variables. =)

In the future, I might want to ask them how to perform every step of
the way.

What didn't:

- Trying to capture what students knew in CS161 was difficult,

probably because they were fresh from a vacation and they didn't
have a clear idea of it. Sir Maguyon's way of explaining CS161 was a
lot more vivid; I should sit in his 9:30 class and go on straight!

- I had a hard time lecturing because I didn't have a lot of anecdotes

2. CookOrDie Day 2: Veal sausage and potatoes : 22:01

Welcome to Day 2 of CookOrDie: Adventures of a Desperate
Cook! I'm Sacha Chua and I'll be your host for today's segment, "Veal
sausage and potatoes".

It has all the makings of a bad survival show... Hey, now there's an
idea - grab a bunch of geeks who have no idea how to cook, turn them
loose in a supermarket with a budget of PHP 100 (~ USD 2) a day, and
see how long they can survive without repeating recipes and using only
a microwave and a toaster oven!

This meal was a bit more expensive than it should have been, but I
know how to fix it now. It came to a total of (+ 44 9.25), or 53.25. I
can improve this by using more potatoes, thus ensuring that I can keep
half of the bratwurst for breakfast the next day. If I doubled my
portion of potatoes and added some herbs and spices - would you
believe that I have neither salt nor pepper? - then I could have a
good meal for (+ 22 (* 2 9.25)), or 40.50.

Microwave chopped potatoes (1/4 ~ 1/2 inch) for 2.5 minutes.

Must find correct way to use butter to flavor these things. Trying to
put garlic in butter didn't really do anything either.

You know what? I should learn how to toast garlic, or however they
prepare the garlic that goes on top of arrozcaldo...

Realization #1: Pita pockets are named pita pockets for a _reason_. I
should try Hungarian-sausage+tomato+cheese stuffed pita pockets. Maybe
tomorrow; I can bring neat little sandwich bags to the UPSA rehearsal.

Realization #2: If I slice the sausages before putting them in the
oven toaster, then they have nice texture.

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Page: 2003.11.12

Updated: 2004-11-2106:44:1306:44:13-0500

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